Hiding In Plain Sight

I had two best friends when I first moved to BC, Lani and Eve. We were inseparable. We played together and ultimately got in trouble together.

We had what could basically be called the precursor to the dollar store, called Steadman’s 5 and 10 Cent Store. One of our favourite purchases was a big block of peanut brittle for a dime. You had to smash the bag against a hard surface to break off edible pieces.

There were two houses between Lani and I and Eve lived across the street. One day we were sitting on the curb in front of the house beside Lani, enjoying the shade of the big tree and smashing our peanut brittle. Three girls lived in that house and we basically didn’t like them very much – for the life of me I can’t remember why.

When they came outside we pretended that we didn’t know they were there and started talking about them, just loud enough that we knew they could hear. We were being really bad – this was not really our usual behaviour. After a short while, the girls ran into the house screaming to their Mom what was happening.

We ran as fast as we could into Lani’s basement. Her brother and friends were playing pool. We hid behind the big cardboard boxes that had held the pool table and were now leaning against the wall.

The Mom came over and asked the brother if he knew where we were. He said “No” and asked why. She left and he told us we could come out of our hideout now. We were so relieved and thanked him for not ratting us out.

He said not to thank him or ever put him in that spot again. He then read us the riot act and said that we had to go apologize NOW to the girls for calling them names. And we did.

While it was the last time we ever badmouthed the neighbours, it would not be the last time we used our cardboard hideout!